Revealed - Offshore Accounts Of World Leaders

Vladimir Putin    Nawaz Sharif

The hidden wealth of some of the world's most prominent leaders, politicians and celebrities - including three former Tory MPs and six peers - has been revealed in a massive leak.

It is reported that journalists from more than 80 countries have been reviewing 11.5 million files leaked from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth biggest offshore law firm.

Among the revelations is a network of secret deals and loans worth £2bn which apparently leads to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to The Guardian, one of the media organisations receiving the leaked documents - the so-called 'Panama Papers' - reveal 

That members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties have had offshore assets. A key member of FIFA's powerful ethics committee, which is supposed to be spearheading reform at world football's scandal-hit governing body, acted as a lawyer for individuals and companies recently charged with bribery and corruption.

Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens. Among the national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt's former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.

Twenty-three individuals who have had sanctions imposed on them for supporting the regimes in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Russia, Iran and Syria have been clients of Panama-based Mossack Fonseca. Their companies were harboured by the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands, Panama and other jurisdictions.

One leaked memo from a partner of Mossack Fonseca said: "Ninety-five per cent of our work coincidentally consists in selling vehicles to avoid taxes." The company has denied any wrongdoing. It says it has acted beyond reproach for 40 years and that it has had robust due diligence procedures.

The document leak comes from the records of the firm, which was founded in 1977. The information is near live, with the most recent records dating from December 2015.

Around 370 reporters from 100 media organisations have spent a year analysing and verifying the documents.

Oxfam's head of UK policy, Richard Pyle, said: "This leak highlights the key role that UK-linked tax havens like the British Virgin Islands play in allowing a privileged elite to dodge paying their fair share of tax.

Campaign group Global Witness said: "This investigation shows how secretly-owned companies, many of them based in the UK's tax havens, can act as getaway cars for terrorists, dictators, money launderers and tax evaders all over the world.